


Three men and a baby

by bluebells



Series: Truck stops and tribulations [1]
Category: Kingsman (Movies), The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Din tries very hard not to punch him, Family Reunions, Found Family, Gen, It has been too many days since Baby has enjoyed any frogs, Kingsman / Statesman & the Mandalorian Fusion, M/M, Modern day road trip AU, Paz wonders how he got here but has few regrets, Whiskey being unapologetically Whiskey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-16
Updated: 2020-01-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:00:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22279048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebells/pseuds/bluebells
Summary: The call picks up on the third ring.“As I live and breathe.” He can hear the smirk of the one who answers; sleek drawl still the same as the day Din left its speaker with a crooked jaw, his own knuckles cut and bruised. Once upon a time, that man’s voice would have soothed him. Today, his gut is churning. “To what do I owe the honour?”Or, the modern road trip AU where Din Djarin is out of options and has to call on his twin for a favour.
Relationships: Baby Yoda & The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV), The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV) & Jack Daniels | Agent Whiskey (Kingsman), The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV) & Paz Vizla, The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)/Paz Vizla
Series: Truck stops and tribulations [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1690528
Comments: 35
Kudos: 175





	Three men and a baby

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Danudane](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Danudane/gifts).



> Like much of the Mandalorian fandom, I went to watch Kingsman: the Golden Circle in our post-season fervour. Between [this tweet](https://twitter.com/samalorian/status/1215794706950475776?s=19) and a week of soundboarding with Danudane, this story was inevitable. Thank Danudane from saving me from alternatively titling this "Brokeback Mando". Yes, I'm showing my age with the published title (the film was great in its time, okay, chill).

The call picks up on the third ring.

“As I live and breathe.” He can hear the smirk of the one who answers; sleek drawl still the same as the day Din left its speaker with a crooked jaw, his own knuckles cut and bruised. Once upon a time, that man’s voice would have soothed him. Today, his gut is churning. “To what do I owe the honour?”

The semi-trailer flies over a speed hump, shuddering hard on its landing, and Din braces himself with a hand against the dashboard.

Beside him, the kid mewls in its booster seat, startled awake, dark eyes blinking large and wide.

Din takes the small hand that reaches for him from within that nest of blankets, and he throws their driver a dirty look.

“Sorry,” Paz rumbles, mouth tense, eyes ahead on the road and hands gripped tight to the wheel.

Din bites back the growl of annoyance.

Paz is just trying to get them as far away as fast as possible. It’s _his_ semi taking them to safety. He’s doing Din and this child a kindness. To think the large man had only met them a few days ago, and now Din owes this trucker more than he thinks he’ll ever be able to repay.

To pile onto that, he needs to ask for one more favour.

“Don’t mean to call out of the blue like this,” he murmurs, phone tight against his cheek. He rubs the kid’s belly to soothe its whimpers, encourage it to burrow back down into the nest of blankets. The kid’s eyelids grow heavy and it wraps small hands around his fingers, keeping him close. He feels a small smile of relief tuck at the corner of his mouth.

“So, what is it?” The audio crackles, but no patchy phone reception can hide the smugness in that tone. “Finally punch the wrong man, Din? Is it money?” A bark of laughter. _“A woman?”_

The jibe is good-natured, but his chest draws in tight, palms sweaty, and his jaw is grinding before he reminds himself to stop because he doesn’t need a headache on top of everything else right now.

“I--” Din’s throat catches and he ignores the narrowed look from Paz, swallowing moisture down so the words don’t stick. “I m-might have… killed a man.”

He feels the weight of Paz’s silence and stares hard instead at the snow blurring past in the semi’s wake. It feels unreal to say it aloud.

 _Finally,_ he expects to hear. _All this time I told you; your talent’s been wasted._

Instead, he doesn’t even earn a laugh: “... And? Did he deserve it?”

Din winces gently, steadying himself with an arm against the door. The window’s glass is cold against his forehead. “Well yeah-- but--”

“Then you did fine,” the interruption is firm, almost _kind,_ and it cleaves through his panic like the rich note of a tuning fork. It strikes Din with a pang in his chest at the rarity of it. “You close by?”

“Yeah,” his voice croaks a little, and it’s too much to hope the other man doesn’t hear it, but there’s grace for him today because he isn’t called on it. 

“Come round. The usual place.”

“Okay.” Din reaches over and checks Paz’s watch. The other man lets him turn his wrist without resistance and the face lights up the dark cabin with the time. “Forty-five.”

“You _are_ close.” The man chuckles gently. “You bringing me trouble, boy?”

“Nothing we can’t handle.”

_‘We’. Just one more time._

“Okay,” a concession, he’s still on the fence, but he’s willing to hear Din out. “Forty-five.”

///

“Can you trust this guy?” Paz asks, stealing concerned glances at him from the black road twisting ahead. 

It's a grey day, the clouds hang low and thick, but at least it's not threatening to drop another layer of snow on them. The chill in the cab is cold and wet, the ice melting from their boots to puddle in the footwell.

Din stares at the phone in his hands, screen dark and cracked.

Paz glances at the child dozing between them, buckled low and snug, chest rising with its soft, small snores. Holding the lower lip of the booster seat, Din gazes into the small face relaxed in sleep. It’s been too long since the little one has been able to rest soundly for more than a few hours, and he’s been achingly grateful for the refuge of this truck since Paz materialised into their lives with his small tank of a shotgun for the pack of hunters that found them outside that Waffle House in West Virginia.

The child is exhausted. They all are.

Time to swallow some pride and face whatever tune fate plays for him-- ‘cause he’ll do whatever it takes to keep them ahead of the ones on their tail. 

"I hope so,” he murmurs, and Paz hums in acceptance.

///

The diner door has barely swung shut behind them when a bright voice rings clear above the patrons' murmurs, uncaring of the disruption:

_"There he is!"_

A lifetime of instinct freezes Din on the spot with a suppressed wince.

Jack Daniels is impossible to miss at the subtlest of times, and today he is not trying in the slightest: he weaves around the booths with all the grandeur like he’s the second coming, arms outstretched in expectation, smile wide but... genuinely pleased?

Paz pulls up short, expression tightly reined and he cuts Din with a sharp look, jaw cording with tension. 

"You forgot to mention 'twin'," the larger man grits out.

Adjusting the kid sucking on its fist against his hip, Din tilts his head. He blinks. "Oh." He’d said ‘brother’, but the twin part-- did it matter?

A huffed exhale. "Some warning would have been nice," Paz mutters with all the sincerity of a man who's never had to learn to lie, lifting his worn cap to push back his dark curls.

Before he has the chance to wonder why, a body slams into Din and strong arms close around his shoulders, he grunts as the air is squeezed from his lungs in a rough hug. 

Jack laughs in his ear, rich and unrepentant.

"It's been too long. You don't call, you don't write." His brother thumps him warmly between the shoulders and steps back to take his fill of his last living family.

Not that four minutes of age difference count for much. Jack Daniels has never been the signpost for a life responsibly lived.

For all the lives he’s entangled or hearts he’s crushed underfoot, Jack has never learned to course correct, always steering by his own compass. It’s kept Din up at night. He used to wish his brother had stronger morals, less swagger, and more remorse. He gave up when Jack was rewarded for his misbehaviour with job security, too much money, and a clean slate.

He doubts Jack learned anything from the broken jaw Din left him.

“Had to lie low,” Din says, struggling to meet his brother’s eye. He looks at the kid instead and brushes the small tufts of hair on its head. It coos back at him quietly, soothing. “You know how it is.”

Growing up can also mean accepting that growing apart is sometimes the only way you’ll ever come back together.

"Well," Jack’s eyebrows climb towards his hairline taking in the child on his hip. Big, dark eyes blink back at him, and his smile warms, endeared. It’s a rare look for him. “Ain’t you just the most precious thing!” The child wraps its tiny fist around the thumb Jack offers, and Din feels that dull tug in his chest again.

His brother turns that assessing look on Din's other companion towering beside them, and Din does not like the eyebrow Paz earns, nor the amusement that colours his smile. 

"Well _well."_ Jack’s smile spreads into the insufferably familiar smirk that makes Din want to smack that pure beaver blend hat off his big head. Jack looks from Paz to Din to the child, and laughs. "You’ve been busy!"

Or maybe Din will just punch him again.

At that moment, Paz does what he does best, materialising just when Din needs him and Jack cranes his neck back, looking up and up as Paz steps in, gesturing to the tables with their high seats and privacy.

“It’s been a long drive,” Paz says, voice low and a little impatient. “Could we--?”

But because Jack is Jack, he just thrusts his hand forth with that customary charm. "Hi, I'm Jack Daniels. And you must be….?"

The trucker takes his hand, slow and considering. “‘Jack Daniels’.” The glance slanted at Din is pinched with disbelief. “Really?”

_Like the drink? Yes, his brother really did all the legal paperwork and went there._

Din shrugs, the only apology he can muster for the spectacle that is his twin. He couldn’t make him up if he tried.

Jack’s smile doesn’t falter, drawing Paz’s attention back with a gentle draw on the hand in his hold. “And you are?”

"Vizsla. Paz Vizsla," he says, and Din rolls his eyes at the exaggerated way his brother startles at the strength of Paz's handshake, laughing.

Jack always thought he was so funny. Unfortunately, so did many others, and all that charm had opened doors that Din could only dream of, and preferred not to consider.

“Vizsla… you know, that name,” Jack hums thoughtfully, wheels spinning. “It’s familiar.”

"Can we sit?" Paz gestures to their waiting table, because more and more patrons are starting to stare, wondering at this extended reunion blocking all traffic at the front door, and finally Jack steps back.

Slinging an arm around his brother’s shoulder, Jack nods indulgently at the kid. “I want to hear everything.”

///

Jack may be a lot of things, but his discomfort with their predicament is a relief.

“A bounty? On a _kid?”_ Jack blinks at the child bouncing on his knee. Babbling intently, the kid waves its short, stubby arms at the rhinestone dangling from the cowboy’s collar, eyes set on their prize. “Who’s he belong to?”

Din sighs, shaking his head, short of answers. “You know the Code. We don’t ask.”

Jack groans under his breath. “Still working for that stuffy guild, brother?”

“No. They cut me off when I took the kid.”

The corners of Jack’s mouth pull down, and he nods, pleased. “Good.”

No, not _good,_ that means Din is persona non grata; nobody will offer him refuge, he’s a walking payday, and he is short on resources.

Which is why he’s found himself right back here.

“This mean you’re finally ready to join a real agency?” Jack smiles broadly, lifting the child to his chest, and Din feels a flush of annoyance at the smugness in his tone. And at how willingly the child wraps its pudgy hands around his brother’s jaw, curling into his short stubble. “You come with us--” Jack snuggles in to smother his cheek to the kid’s temple, and Din has to stifle a possessive growl when the kid giggles. “You’ll have everything you need to protect this little one. Nobody’ll be able to touch him.”

Paz has stopped where he’s hunched over his pancakes and is frowning at Din. “Agency?”

Din flexes what calm he has left to keep his expression still and blank, and not betray how much he wants to reach over the table to snatch his kid back.

“I’m not joining Statesman. I haven’t changed my mind.”

Jack rolls his eyes, his whole body, and plops the kid on the table before him. The kid burbles with delight at the plate of mostly untouched roast now beside his leg.

“Then what the hell are you doing here, huh? I know you don’t need help hiding no bodies when you got--” He gestures significantly at Paz beside him. “This,” he finishes, lamely.

“They stuck the kid with a tracker. It’s in his blood. Too sophisticated and dangerous for me to get out. With the tech you can access, you could do it.”

“Ah, so don’t want to join us, but still want to play with our toys.”

He says it like Din is waltzing up to a boutique and not trying to keep a small, vulnerable child alive.

“This is not a _game.”_ Din clenches his jaw, flushing hotly. “The kid will never be safe until we do.”

“Maybe. Maybe.” Jack’s sing-song tone is infuriating. He nudges the kid gently on its belly where it’s swaddled thick in winter layers. His voice is low and careful, but not uncaring. “What’s so special about you, huh?”

Paz and Din exchange a careful look. Paz’s hands are clenched tight on his cutlery.

The child laughs, a bubble of light among their tense gloom, and smears a meal’s worth of green peas across itself and Jack’s cheek.

Din stares, stunned, and Jack blinks-- then bursts into laughter, swiping the mess up with two fingers and sucking them into his mouth. “Mmm, not bad!”

The kid laughs and reaches back down to the plate.

All three men dive in to block him, plates clattering, cutlery tinkling, drinks are precariously jostled, and the kid’s little round face is pure glee, stuck in a giggling loop as his hands are caught in thick napkins and wiped clean.

“All right, Green Bean, all right,” Jack is smiling, and swipes the napkin across the child’s nose. He leans in, bringing them almost nose-to-nose. His eyes soften. “You know, if my kid had lived, he’d be about your age.”

That pang in Din’s chest morphs into a vice pinching his lungs with guilt. That might be the one wound that could have truly humbled his brother, the one that will never truly heal.

“So, what’s the verdict?” Paz rumbles, moving that plate of trouble away from the kid’s sphere of mischief. “Can you help?”

Jack squints at him, head tilted. "What's in it for you?"

"I used to be him," Paz nods at the child, declared so plainly that Din blinks at him, forgetting to mask his surprise. "Running. Guns. That's no way for a kid to live."

Jack’s mouth shrugs, considering. Those dark eyes return to his brother, and then Din is looking into his mirror, being asked a familiar question. Jack nods at Paz, not bothering to lower his voice, “You trust him?”

They’re both watching him and, initially, Din thinks about lying. But this kid is counting on him, it has nobody else, and he can’t afford to disrespect his brother’s intelligence.

“I don’t trust anyone,” he says, holding Jack’s eye.

In his periphery, he sees Paz sit back from his plate, spine straight and stiff.

Across from him, Jack smiles with approval. “Well, at least we’re all starting from the same square. So, how about it, Green Bean? You up for one more trip?” He nudges the child under the chin and winks. “I hope you like ginger ale.”

**Author's Note:**

> I sigh about Baby Yoda a lot on [Tumblr](https://bellsybuilds.tumblr.com/) or [Twitter](https://twitter.com/bellsybuilds).
> 
>  **Permissions:** You do not need to ask for permission to make translations, podfics, fanfic or fanart for any of my stories-- I do ask that you link back to my original work and let me know because I would LOVE to share what you've created.


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